Police, Lies & Alibis is the true story of a year in my life as a front line response police officer, highlighting the funny, interesting and bizarre.  The book takes you on patrol with me and answers those questions that you always wanted to ask… and others that never even crossed your mind! 

What genre is it?
Biography, Police, Humour.

We absolutely loved the anecdotes in your last book Police, Crime & 999 (interview here). Can you tell us one of the stories from this book?
Dumb criminals never cease to amaze me.

After a hard night’s graft stealing metal from an electricity sub-station, one such criminal, no doubt ecstatic with his haul, decided to answer the call of nature before he left, and urinated at the scene. Unfortunately, he directed his stream onto the station’s transformer, causing a power cut to over 2,000 homes in Sandford, and ‘permanently disfiguring’ himself in the process. He was very easy to locate, as he was the only person in the hospital with smoke coming from his head and a penis that looked like an overdone sausage on a barbeque.

He was arrested and charged for the second time that night.

That’s really funny. We needn’t have feared that the standard of your humour would’ve dropped between books!
Are you still serving? Do you go through each day wondering if you’ll encounter stories for your next book?
I am still a serving officer and always keep an eye out for the unusual or bizarre for the next book. Sometimes you don’t have to look too far, though – sometimes they come to you. Take the man who rang the police to say that as he had walked past a student’s house, he had noticed some plants on the windowsill; he said that they didn’t look like they were being looked after, so rang the police emergency line asking for an officer to go out and water them.

One man called to report that someone had stolen his idea.  Another rang the police because a kitten was following her.

That’s crazy. None of these stories are made up, are they? Do you need permission to tell them? How do you maintain the privacy of the people you talk about?
Names and places have been changed to protect the guilty. I do need permission from the constabulary to write the books, but they have been very supportive. I’m not giving away any state secrets, but rather letting people know what their police REALLY do!

Tell us a little more about yourself.
I never wanted to be a writer… I wanted to be a soldier, a sailor and a policeman. I’m lucky enough to have done all three in my time…and then realised that it would be a crime not to put down in writing some of crazy things I’ve seen, hence the books!

My first book, ‘Shakespeare My Butt!’ covers my time in the military, both navy and army…  and then getting a dog and travelling around the bizarre named places in Great Britain (places like Pity Me, Wetwang, No Place, Twatt etc). It’s been described as ‘Bill Bryson on magic mushrooms’.

The next book, ‘Police, Crime & 999’ was about my first year as a response officer. ‘Police, Lies & Alibis’  picks up where that left off – although both can be read as standalone books in their own right.

How can we follow you on social media?
I’m on twitter:  @JohnDonoghue64

..and I have a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/PoliceCrime999

Do you have a website?
I do www.policecrime999.com where you’ll also find some photos of some of those strange named places.

What’s next?
I’m already collecting stories for the next police book. Last week I went to a domestic where a woman had called in to complain because her husband had made lumpy mashed potato. Another had called in because his toddler had put his finger in a baked spud and he had burnt the end of it because it was too hot!

On this basis, I don’t think it will be long before I’ve got enough for volume three!

We know we’re acting like an addict who doesn’t know when to stop, but one more anecdote… please.
It’s not all foot chases, slapping on the handcuffs and potato related shenanigans … sometimes just putting your ear to the ground and listening to what the word is on the street can reap dividends.

Intelligence about the illicit activity of a group of disillusioned college students allowed us to foil a plot to bring panic and mayhem to Sandford town centre on a busy Saturday afternoon. It appeared that an unusual level of interest in the new batch of piglets at the local farmer’s market had triggered suspicion. Word got back to us and we investigated further. A student was brought in, lightly grilled, and eventually cracked, revealing the details of the operation. The concept was inspired and its application was meticulously planned. It’s such a shame that I didn’t get to see the intended result.
In brief, their plan was to acquire four piglets, paint the numbers 1,2,3 and 5 on their backs, let them loose in the high street, and then watch everyone frantically search for number 4. Genius!